Palaeoclimatology

This paper investigates the stable isotopic composition from late Pleistocene–Holocene (~ 13 to ~ 10.5 cal ka BP) shells of the land snail Helix figulina, from Franchthi Cave (Greece). It explores the palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental implications of the isotope palaeoecology of archaeological shells at the time of human occupation of the cave. Modern shells from around the cave were also analysed and their isotopic signatures compared with those of the archaeological shells. The carbon isotope composition of modern shells depicts the consumption of C3 vegetation. Shell oxygen isotopic values are consistent with other Mediterranean snail shells from coastal areas. Combining empirical linear regression and an evaporative model, the δ18Os suggest that modern snails in the study area are active during periods of higher relative humidity and lower rainfall δ18O, probably at night. Late glacial and early Holocene δ18Os show lower values compared to modern ones. Early Holocene δ18Os ...

"In his recent book „The Collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean“ (Cambridge 2012), Ronnie Ellenblum argues that a series of climatic disasters in the 11th cent. led to the decline of polities in the Near East and prepared the ground for both the advance of the Seljuks and of the Crusaders into the region. Focused on the Byzantine case during the „Comnenian period“, this paper will critically review this hypothesis on the basis of both textual and natural scientific evidence and propose a more nuanced picture of the interplay between society, climate and environment in the Eastern Mediterranean from the 11th to the 13th century. As will become clear, neither the complexity of natural phenomena nor the complexity of medieval societies should be reduced to mere linear lines of causation.
This research was made possible with support of the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit-Foundation during a stay at the Institute for Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation in Athens.
The following pages provide a first short overview over some material to be presented and discussed in this lecture.
Contact: Johannes.Preiser-Kapeller@oeaw.ac.at
"

Introductory chapter to the two volumes studies on Climate, Pandemics and the transformation of the Old World, Vol. 1: "Die Erste Ernte und der Große Hunger" (https://www.mandelbaum.at/buecher/johannes-preiser-kapeller/die-erste-ernte-und-der-grosse-hunger/); Vol 2: "Der Lange Sommer und die Kleine Eiszeit" (https://www.mandelbaum.at/buecher/johannes-preiser-kapeller/der-lange-sommer-und-die-kleine-eiszeit/).

Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dates are reported for silts and very fine sands believed to be loessic sediments from northwest England. At three sites loessic sediments were initially interpreted as primary aeolian deposits, and at two other sites as loess incorporated into the matrix of cemented scree. However, the results of OSL dating indicate a more complex pattern of accumulation than originally hypothesized and have prompted reconsideration of these materials. Whatever the process(es) and underlying cause(s), it is evident that significant amounts of soil erosion occurred on the limestone uplands earlier than previously thought. All but one of the ages fall entirely within the Holocene period and suggest that these deposits contain reworked, rather than primary loess. Four of the five sites are characterized by non-Gaussian dose distributions, and consequently equivalent doses have been estimated using a range of appropriate age models. The implications of differences in the ages derived from the fine silt and fine sand fractions of the samples are considered. Three processes, namely aeolian transport, overland flow and subsoil piping, are invoked to account for the reworking of loess, although their relative contributions cannot be quantified. At one site the inclusion of limestone clasts within the reworked loess strongly suggests that the sediment can be regarded as loess-derived colluvium. Human impacts on the landscape and climate shifts, either separately or in combination, are considered to have been the most likely mechanisms that triggered loess erosion.

In present Quaternary research, there is a dominant focus upon learning about the past using biophysical proxies, as well as mathematical modelling and analogues. Perhaps neglected has been the human-produced record of rock art- markings made on rock surfaces by prehistoric humans which provide a c.50,000 year window onto environmental change and its consequences for humans and animals during the Quaternary Period. This essay synthesises a series of case studies which demonstrate that rock art- although dissimilar to conventional palaeoclimate proxies, suffering from neglect by researchers and limited by problems with dating and interpretation- is not irrelevant to Quaternary scientists, but can be, if sensitively interpreted, an interesting and informative source regarding climate, societal change and change in faunal distributions in the Quaternary period.

This November, the Institute of Ancient History at the Department of Ancient Civilizations (University of Basel/Switzerland) is hosting an international conference, linking the discipline of Ancient History
with the Environmental and Climate Sciences.

Intl. Conference on "Climate Science & Ancient History.
Decoding «Natural» and «Human» Archives", November 27–28, 2018, Kollegienhaus, Regenzzimmer 111, Petersplatz 1, 4001 Basel, Switzerland

The conference bridges the traditional gap between the Humanities and the Natural Sciences: Researchers from Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Great Britain and the United States will illustrate with
interdisciplinary contributions, to what extent the different sciences are capable of assisting and complementing each other in the exploration of
past times, regions and cultures.

We warmly invite you to participate in our conference. To register, please send an email to sabine.huebner@unibas.ch. For all informations regarding program and location, please see our website
https://altegeschichte.philhist.unibas.ch/de/forschung/forschungsprojekte/climate-science/
and the program below.

Understanding Collapse explores the collapse of ancient civilisations, such as the Roman Empire, the Maya, and Easter Island. In this lively survey, Guy D. Middleton critically examines our ideas about collapse - how we explain it and how we have constructed potentially misleading myths around collapses - showing how and why collapse of societies was a much more complex phenomenon than is often admitted. Rather than positing a single explanatory model of collapse - economic, social, or environmental - Middleton gives full consideration to the overlooked resilience in communities of ancient peoples and the choices that they made. He offers a fresh interpretation of collapse that will be accessible to both students and scholars. The book is an engaging, introductory-level survey of collapse in the archaeology/history literature, which will be ideal for use in courses on the collapse of civilizations, sustainability, and climate change. It includes up-to-date case studies of famous and less well-known examples of collapses, and is illustrated with 25 black and white illustrations, 3 line drawings, 16 tables and 18 maps.

'Middleton's book is the best introduction to 'collapsology'. It carefully dissects theories, especially grand theories, and marshals data so that the reader can see what collapses (and what doesn't) in major cases from Rome and Egypt to the Maya and Easter Island. It is informative from beginning to end and gracefully written.'
Norman Yoffee, University of Michigan

'Understanding Collapse is a remarkable work of scholarship, synthesizing literature and describing a variety of collapse cases in extraordinary detail. The breadth and depth of coverage are exemplary.'
Joseph A. Tainter, Author of The Collapse of Complex Societies

A new temperature reconstruction with decadal resolution, covering the last two millennia, is presented for the extratropical Northern Hemisphere (90–30°N), utilizing many palaeo-temperature proxy records never previously included in any large-scale temperature reconstruction. The amplitude of the reconstructed temperature variability on centennial time-scales exceeds 0.6°C. This reconstruction is the first to show a distinct Roman Warm Period c. ad 1–300, reaching up to the 1961–1990 mean temperature level, followed by the Dark Age Cold Period c. ad 300–800. The Medieval Warm Period is seen c. ad 800–1300 and the Little Ice Age is clearly visible c. ad 1300–1900, followed by a rapid temperature increase in the twentieth century. The highest average temperatures in the reconstruction are encountered in the mid to late tenth century and the lowest in the late seventeenth century. Decadal mean temperatures seem to have reached or exceeded the 1961–1990 mean temperature level during substantial parts of the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period. The temperature of the last two decades, however, is possibly higher than during any previous time in the past two millennia, although this is only seen in the instrumental temperature data and not in the multi-proxy reconstruction itself. Our temperature reconstruction agrees well with the reconstructions by Moberg et al. (2005) and Mann et al. (2008) with regard to the amplitude of the variability as well as the timing of warm and cold periods, except for the period c. ad 300–800, despite significant differences in both data coverage and methodology.

Thermal considerations can help to resolve two of the most challenging problems in later Palaeolithic archaeology: the demise of Neanderthals and the emergence of modern human behaviour. Both of these enigmas can be viewed as reflecting interactions between biological and behavioural cold adaptations, in the context of extreme climatic fluctuations during the Upper Pleistocene. Recent studies draw attention to the special difficulties which these conditions posed for humans, but few studies give sufficient regard to the need for adequate pre-adaptations, namely, technologies for manufacturing complex clothing assemblages. It is argued here that pre-existing biological adaptations to cold delayed the development of such technological capacities among Neanderthals, resulting ultimately in their extinction. In contrast, fully modern humans were biologically more vulnerability to cold, promoting a precocious appearance of behavioural adaptations among some (though not all) groups, visible in the various archaeological markers of modern human behaviour.

The evolution of the physical geography of the region is considered as having taken place in four periods of diminishing magnitude approaching the present. In the Mesozoic and Tertiary eras, the continental outlines and rift system were roughed out by coastal movements. During the Late Pliocene and Pleistocene, a number of volcanic, tectonic and climatic events have been dated. Sequences of climatic changes in the Late Quaternary are traced in the four drainage basins, Zambezi, Zaire, Nile and Awash; the possible range of temperature and rainfall fluctuations is discussed. Finally, mention is made of the results of human activities in the region over the last few centuries.

Private diaries provide a fairly unique set of materials within climate change research in that they provide information both on past climate variability and on the ways that people live within, and interact with, climate. The fact that the observations within them are affected as much by personal experience as by physical conditions can render the derivation of robust climatic data problematic, and a number of techniques have been developed to generate quantitative or semi-quantitative information from them. These include frequency counts of binary meteorological phenomena such as days with/without precipitation, content analysis techniques, proxies such as grain harvest dates, and statistical techniques that assume of some degree of continuity between the reconstruction period and the present day. The latter approaches can provide the most robust data, but can preclude direct comparison between past and present climates. Some studies attempt to increase reliability through comparison with other contemporaneous reconstructions, but this can create a potential for circular reasoning. As ethnographies, the methodological issues are less challenging. Most were highly personal documents and not intended for publication; diaries can therefore represent ‘pure’ ethnographies, representing an unbiased account of individuals’ interactions with the ‘weather world’ and, in some cases, the ways that weather informed the character they presented to the world. Diaries can therefore exemplify individuals’ highly personal engagement with weather and climate, reflective of a myriad of a number of social, cultural, political and scientific narratives. Their use in climate research can therefore provide important contributions to current debates.

Pre-print, German version to be published in: Karfunkel – Zeitschrift für erlebbare Geschichte. Combat-Sonderheft 10 (2014) (in print; communicating science to the public).

Abstract: The Crusaders, who in the 11th Century moved in the thousands from Western and Central Europe to the Eastern Mediterranean to liberate the Holy Grave from the “infidels”, found themselves confronted not only with foreign cultures and violent armed resistance, but also with an alien natural environment and climatic conditions that could prove to be sometimes just as fatal as the arrows of the enemy. At the same time the Crusades fell into a period of quite changeable climatic conditions in Europe and the Middle East, which must be included as well in the historical analysis of the military events.

This paper presents a thermal model for the prehistoric origins and development of clothing. A distinction is drawn between simple and complex clothing, a distinction which has implications for palaeolithic technological transitions and the emergence of modern human behavior. Physiological principles and paleoenvironmental data are harnessed to identify conditions requiring simple, loosely–draped garments and the more challenging conditions that demanded additional protection in the form of complex garment assemblages. No actual clothing survives from the Pleistocene, yet the archaeological record yields evidence for technological and other correlates of clothing―more evidence than is generally supposed. Major innovations and trends in the distributions and relative frequencies of lithic and other tool forms may reflect the changing need for portable insulation in the context of fluctuating ice age climates. Moreover, the non–thermal repercussions of complex clothing can be connected with archaeological signatures of modern human behavior, notably adornment. Alternative models are less parsimonious in accounting for the geographical and temporal variability of prominent technological and other behavioral patterns that vary in association with environmental changes.

A wide range of factors has been invoked to explain the decline and disappearance of the urban phase of the Indus or Harappan civilization. Earlier theories based on invasions or man-made conflicts have been increasingly discarded; on the other hand, there has been growing evidence and acceptance that climatic and environmental factors played a significant role.
While climatic studies from the 1970s to 1990s tended to support the view that a marked trend towards aridity had set in even before the urban or Mature Harappan phase (2600–1900 BCE), more recent studies have pushed this shift to the end of the third millennium BCE. This is also the time when, in the eastern domain of the Harappan civilization, the Sarasvati dwindled to a minor seasonal river, while floods appear to have been caused by a shifting Indus in the west. Other possible causes include the pressure put on remaining forests by intensive industrial activities. In any case, the archaeological evidence records the abandonment of Harappan sites in the Sarasvati’s central basin, and a migration of Late Harappan settlements: north-eastward towards the foot of the Shivalik Hills, eastward across the Yamuna, possibly too westward towards the Indus plains and southward towards the Vindhyas.
This paper attempts to correlate archaeological evidence with sedimentological, palynological and other palaeoclimatic studies and suggests a few possible conclusions and lines of further exploration.

Paper published in Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 65 (2015) p. 195-242.

Abstract: This paper discusses a recently proposed scenario of a climate-induced “Collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean” in the 11th century AD. It demonstrates that such a scenario cannot be maintained when confronted with proxy data from various regions. On the other hand, data on the interplay between environment and economy in the Komnenian period (1081–1185) and evidence for a change of climatic conditions in the period of the Angeloi (1185–1204) is presented, arguing that climatic parameters should be taken into consideration when comparing socio-economic dynamics in the Eastern Mediterranean with those in Western Europe. The necessity of further research on the regional as well as over-regional level for many aspects of the interaction between human society and environment in the medieval Eastern Mediterranean is highlighted.

The illaenid trilobite Vysocania is widely represented in the Upper Ordovician of the Czech Republic, Portugal and Spain, and is one of the most characteristic taxa in the high-latitude peri-Gondwana palaeobiogeographical region to which it is endemic. Three species of the genus that were formerly assigned to Stenopareia and Zetillaenus, from the Czech Republic and Spain respectively, are herein revised, and a new species is described from the Czech Republic. The genus Octillaenus, of which a new species is described from the Upper Ordovician of Morocco, is considered to have arisen from Vysocania through paedomorphic (neotenic) processes. The relationships between Vysocania, Octillaenus, Stenopareia and Zetillaenus are reviewed and the criteria used in the definition of these taxa discussed. Species assigned to Vysocania are V. vaneki (type-species), V. iberica, V. moraveci sp. nov. and V. panderi; species assigned to Octillaenus are O. hisingeri (type-species) and O. marocanus sp. nov. Vysocania appears for the first time in the lower Berounian (Sandbian) and has its last undoubted record in the upper Berounian (upper Katian); Octillaenus is presently restricted to the Kralodvorian (upper Katian). •

According to recent researches bearers of H2a1 MtDNA suddenly appeared between Araxes, Don and Volga Rivers during Chalcolithic and spread in Eurasia until Late Bronze Age during what is commonly called Indo-European Migrations. We demonstrate in this paper that this sudden and fast expansion is in fact the last step of a prior and longer ethnogenesis's process for the H2a MtDNA bearers rooted to Levantine Pastoralism for Milk that expanded before and after Late Glacial Maximum (LGM). It also demonstrates that women were a key element in the Neolithic Revolution and proposes the theory according to which their strong political position was linked to a solid oral transmission of knowledge that has been weakened by the new 'way of like' that shortened their life's expectancy due to the convergence of an increased birth rate and the apparition of new diseases (Yersinia Pestis/ Tuberculosis). Then the H2a MtDNA weak demic diffusion of Agriculture/ Pastoralism was accompanied by a strong cultural diffusion that also blurred cultural epicentres. However, this balance reversed in Lesser Caucasus during Chalcolithic, particularly in Hal (Vorotan River, Lesser Caucasus) where favourable political and geoclimatic conditions promoted this 'women's caste' specialized in domestication and dairying products (Cheese) to became major building block of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic expansions in Europe. In the aftermath of a first migration towards Balkans/ Calabria, a second expansion of H2a1 MtDNA towards the Eurasian steppe (Bronze Age) was the result of a successful political adaptation to rapid and radical political changes in Transcaucasia due to the emergence of a nomadic military/ merchant's caste specialized in equitation and warfare. In other words, both Neolithic and Chalcolithic expansions diffused the scarce H2a MtDNA and the omnipresent H2a1 MtDNA lineages who enriched a single common cultural background that reveals the whole history of populations since the Pre-Pottery Neolithic to Eneolithic.

Presentation for the Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies of the Central European University in Vienna, 27 January 2022, 5:30 pm: https://events.ceu.edu/2022-01-27/signs-end-times-turn-first-millennium-ad-oort-minimum-and-natural-disasters-byzantine

Abstract: The turn of the first Millennium AD among some Christian communities related to apocalyptic expectation. These fears and hopes clustered not only in the decades before and after the year 1000 AD, but also at later dates throughout the 11th century, such as around 1030 AD (one thousand years after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ) or around 1064/1065 AD (based on calculations on a recurrence of the same Easter date as in the year of the resurrection). Such speculations motivated authors in the Medieval West, in the Byzantine Empire (such as Leon Diakonos) or in Armenia (such as Matthew of Edessa). Furthermore, in the same period, but based on different chronologies, expectations of a turn of times arose among Islamic communities (such as in some circles of the al-Ismāʿīlīya) as well in parts of the Buddhist world (connected with ideas of a “Degenerate Age of Dharma”, in Japanese mappō).

To illustrate and support their visions of history and current affairs, these authors interpreted celestial signs (such as the sighting of Halley's Comet in 1066), extreme meteorological phenomena (droughts, floods) and other disasters (such as earthquakes) as portents of the imminent apocalypse. In fact, modern historical climatology identified an increase of the frequency of extreme events across Afro-Eurasia from Western Europe to China, which can be partly related to the “Oort Minimum” of solar activity between 1010 and 1080 CE. These natural phenomena, however, were not the cause for apocalyptic expectations, but selectively integrated by the authors of the time in their texts. Based on individual narrative strategies, more or fewer calamities were reported for specific periods or rulers in more or less detail. As the paper demonstrates, a comparison between different texts and historiographies as well as between the “archives of society” and the “archives of nature” allows us to “triangulate” the actual extent and impact of some of these extreme events. At the same time, it becomes clear that historical sources cannot be used just as another type of environmental data without considering the intentions of their composition, as is still often the case in studies done by natural scientists on their own.

Keynote lecture for the conference "Vom Buch aufs Feld – vom Feld ins Buch. Verflechtungen von Theorie und Praxis in Ernährung und Landwirtschaft (ca. 1300–1600)", organised by Dr. Stephan F. Ebert / Prof. Dr. Gerrit Jasper Schenk (TU Darmstadt) at the UNESCO Welterbe Kloster Lorsch, 31.03.2022 - 02.04.2022: https://www.hsozkult.de/event/id/event-116048

While the enduring impact of the Imperium Romanum on agricultural traditions in Western and Central Europe also after antiquity is common knowledge (and even popularized in the semi-legendary introduction of winegrowing to the Danube provinces by Emperor Probus in the 3rd century CE), the “New Rome” of the East (the medieval Byzantine Empire) is rarely associated with such innovations. Only the alleged smuggling of silkworms (depending on the growing of mulberry trees) from China to Byzantium during the reign of Emperor Justinian I (527-565 CE) still finds its way even into schoolbooks.
Based on recent studies re-evaluating the written sources, and in combination with new archaeological and palaeobotanical evidence, the lecture embeds the agriculture in the Byzantine Empire within the wider dynamics of socio-political and environmental change as well as agrarian innovation in the medieval Eastern Mediterranean – including the introduction of new crops especially from South Asia (such as sugar cane, rice or cotton), which already began in Egypt and the Levant under late Roman rule, but intensified with was has been called an “Arab agricultural revolution” from the 8th century CE onwards. The adaptation to and share of Byzantium in these developments are discussed also with regard to changing food patterns.
These developments equally provided the basis for new forms of plantation economy introduced to the “Romania” by Italian sea powers (Venetians, Genoese) after the conquest of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade of 1204. The Byzantine Empire was restored with the re-conquest of Constantinople in 1261, but was dramatically reduced in power and found itself now integrated at the periphery of new networks of exchange and circulation of commodities and technologies which entangled the Mediterranean with wider Afro-Eurasia.
The “proto-colonialism” of Venice or Genoa equally anticipated practices of land use and exploitation later adopted in the European colonies in the Atlantic; from America, in turn, new crops found their way to the Eastern Mediterranean (now under Ottoman rule) in the 16th century, marking also there a new epoch in the history of agriculture and nutrition.

Africa is extremely linguistic diverse, but most of its languages fall into four major phyla, plus isolates. The paper describes the current classification of these and maps their distribution. It is argued that the only way these can be effectively interpreted in terms of prehistory, is the use of an integrated approach which incorporates archaeology and palaeoclimate. Potential interpretations of the four major phyla are proposed, including sections which focus on specific families.

This database is a stand-alone version (CalPal_All_Continents_Edition_2024_11.xlsx) of the main CalPal-Format Excel 14C-Database (22,4 MB), with dates (total N=183904 dates, N=31152 sites, ca. 99.7% georef) stored in spreadsheets according to
continents/regions/: Africa (N=9180),  Asia (N=1018),  Australia (N=4247,) British Isles (N=13474),  Central America (N=1794), China (N=4499), Europe (N=56915), Japan (N=30673),  North America (N=52977), Polynesia (N=2264), and South America (N=6863). This database is under development, and is intended for use (e.g. in terms of archaeological variables, automated Calibration Curve Switch (CCS) and DeltaR-functionality) in combination with CalPal-Software. A download of CalPal-Software (Version 2024.6), which already has CCS and DeltaR-functionality, is available from the Zenodo repository at CERN (CH): https://zenodo.org/records/11104437.

https://www.profil.at/wirtschaft/klima-podcast-das-klima-veraendert-sich-seit-jahrtausenden-na-und/401978075

Tauwetter #33: „Von einem globalen menschengemachten Klimawandel kann man erst mit Beginn der Industrialisierung sprechen“, sagt Umwelthistoriker Johannes Preiser-Kapeller.

In the “calamitous” 14th century, as Barbara Tuchman called it in her classic „A Distant Mirror“ (1978) , the medieval world entered a period of severe crisis in demography, economy, politics and religion. This crisis took hold in all regions, ranging from China in the East to England in the West. Even before the catastrophic pandemic of the Black Death (1346-1352), deteriorating climatic conditions had ended the period of demographic and economic expansion that began in the 10th century.
The local and regional impacts and consequences of these general potentially crisis-laden conditions may have differed; outcomes ranged from actual societal collapse to the emergence of powerful new polities – while Byzantium´s power dwindled away, Hungary entered a period of strong rulership and external power in the reign of Louis I of Anjou (1342-1382), for instance. But these conditions provide a framework for global perspective on this period and allow us to use the 14th century-crisis as a field of “natural experiments of history”, as Jared Diamond and James A. Robinson have called them ; accordingly, we analyse how similar crisis phenomena influenced the development of societies with different (or similar) traditions, religions, institutions, geographies or ecologies.
In order to be able to capture the local variations and complexities, we adopt concepts and tools provided by the field of complexity science. Mono-causal or linear explanations are inadequate for the analysis and the description of crisis, transformation or collapse of pre-modern polities. Within this framework, complex systems are understood as large networks of individual components, whose interactions at the microscopic level produce “complex” changing patterns of behaviour of the whole system on the macroscopic level. In the last decades, historians and social scientists who became interested in complexity theory tried to use its concepts and terminology for the conceptualisation and description of phenomena in their own fields, but often only in a “metaphoric” way. Less frequently, though, historians have tried to make use of the mathematical foundations of complexity theory or of quantitative tools provided by this field. Recent scholarship has implemented some of these tools especially for the construction of macro-models of socio-economic development. While these studies help us construct analytical tools for the macro-level of our own research, they run the same risk as earlier scholarship of neglecting complex variations at the local and regional levels.
Therefore, we combine complexity theory with the analytical framework of „systems theory“ developed by the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann in order to capture the interveawements between politics, economy and religion within a polity and with the political, economic and ecological environment. In addition, we employ the methods and tools of network analysis, which allow us to capture, analyse and model linkages and cause-effect correlations in society, economy, politics and religion on the macro- and micro-level down to groups and individuals.
Overall, as a complement to earlier studies our analytical
approach shall allow us to capture the “diversité véritable” of our period without losing track of essential commonalities (the “strange parallels”, as Victor Liebermann has called them in his remarkable study on Southeast Asia in Global Context, 2009 ) of this “first world crisis” across all cultures and societies. The scientic value of this approach will be demonstrated for some specific cases.

The debate over whether Africa was the sole home of hominin species (excepting Homo neanderthalensis and Homo floresiensis) is not completely won (Dennell, 2009: 466). Homo erectus (sensu lato) is often thought to be the first species to have left Africa and entered Asia (Langbroek, 2004: 11; Klein, 2005: 102), with occasional discussions on earlier hominids (such as australopithecines) having made this symbolic breakthrough (Templeton, 2002: 48; Dennell and Roebroeks, 2005: 1100). The role of climate has often been used to discuss the emergence of a particular species, however it has been less discussed when approaching why a species – (Homo erectus) – may have evolved into a new species – (Homo heidelbergensis) – on one continent, whilst seemingly persisting for a large period of time on another, with little change to its skeletal morphology.
Homo erectus became ubiquitous (Bonnefille, 2010: 408) across a number of environments across Africa and Asia, from high plateau to sea level, temperate to tropical, desert to rainforest as well as persisting from c.1.7 Ma to maybe c. 60 Ka (Klein, 2005: 106). The emergence of this species is believed to have been triggered by climatic changes c. 1.8 Ma, as was its dispersal across the old world (or before) (Bar Yosef, 1998: 267; Clark, 1998: 437). Ultimately, the equation for hominin occupation and survival across the earth required access to water, food and stone (Dennell, 2009: 476).